Industry Leaders EP15 with Karl May

Seton Walsh-Rose sits down with Karl May, Managing Director of Turner — the Sydney- and London-based urban design, architecture and interiors studio he helped start in 2001 and has grown, at times 20% a year, for over 25 years. A graduate who cut his teeth in Malaysia and New York before helping build one of Australia’s most respected living-sector practices, Karl brings a rare double perspective: the creative and the commercial.

It’s a generous, practical conversation about what it actually takes to grow and lead a design practice. Karl talks through the growth plateaus and how to push past them, his counter-intuitive hiring rule, why density shapes everything about a city, the ‘perfect storm’ making development so hard right now, why the industry has gone backwards on productivity, and how Turner governs AI — as a junior team member to be guided and checked, never blindly trusted.

Episode Chapters

• 0:03 Welcome & Introduction
• 0:05 Turner’s Origin
• 0:44 20% a Year for 15 Years
• 1:29 Karl’s Path
• 3:15 An International Eye
• 3:54 Density & the City
• 5:15 Built on Urban Renewal
• 5:33 The Growth Milestones
• 6:34 The Business of Architecture
• 7:43 The Living Sector
• 10:12 Density Drives Everything
• 12:05 Melbourne, Sydney, Queensland
• 13:34 Sydney in Pockets
• 16:00 NSW vs Victoria
• 19:25 The Metro Game-Changer
• 22:19 The Perfect Storm
• 26:48 Modular & MMC
• 27:06 Productivity Has Gone Backwards
• 30:29 A Career of Saying Yes
• 32:11 Doing Everything
• 34:07 25 Years, One Place
• 35:34 A Culture of Challenge
• 36:12 The Hiring Secret
• 37:00 Keep a Pipeline
• 39:38 Leadership Maturity
• 41:02 Governing AI
• 43:40 Think First
• 46:12 Skills for the Future
• 49:07 Recommendation & Close

Key Takeaways

• Growth comes in stages — push through each plateau, and add the roles that free you to do the real work.
• Say yes and keep a pipeline — Karl’s career and Turner’s growth were built on seizing opportunities.
• Hire good people, not for a job — “if you get good people, the work will come.”
• Density drives cities — nightlife, mixed-use and livability all follow it.
• Development is in a “perfect storm” of labour, interest rates and land, with no single fix.
• Construction has gone backwards on productivity — the site still lays bricks while the front end runs on AI and BIM.
• Modular is the answer — but regulation isn’t built for it yet.
• Treat AI like a junior team member: give it good instructions and always check its work.
• Teach people to think first — strategy is what lets you hand the repetitive parts to AI and still judge the output.
• Leadership matures from forcing your will to listening.

Sound Bites / Quotes:
“We never hired for a job. If we saw a good CV come into the office, we hired them anyway — because if you get good people, the work will come.”

“It all starts with saying yes to things.”

References & Resources

• Productivity Commission — on the built environment’s declining productivity over recent decades: https://www.pc.gov.au
• Australian Institute of Architects — a Turner director presented on AI to one of its practice forums: https://www.architecture.com.au
• Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) — the ‘brain’ profiling Karl referenced (as ‘Herman Miller brain’) when describing his leadership team’s overlap: https://www.thinkherrmann.com
  -NSW planning reforms referenced — Low and Mid-Rise Housing policy and the Housing Delivery Authority (NSW Department of Planning): https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au
  –MMC (Modern Methods of Construction), modular and volumetric building — and the NSW Apartment Design Guide.
• Mixed-use / the living sector — from short-stay hotels through student, co-living, social, affordable, build-to-rent and seniors living.
  -The Rest Is Politics (UK and US editions): https://therestispolitics.com